MCLC: This American Life retracts Apple story (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: This American Life retracts Apple story (1)
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Source: NYT (3/18/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/business/media/theater-disguised-up-as-re
al-journalism.html

THE MEDIA EQUATION
Theater, Disguised as Real Journalism
By DAVID CARR 

Is it O.K. to lie on the way to telling a greater truth? The short answer
is also the right one.

No.

It¹s worth examining that question now that we have learned about the lies
perforating the excerpt of Mike Daisey¹s one-man show on Apple¹s
manufacturing processes in China, broadcast in January on the weekly
public radio show ³This American Life.²

No one is suggesting that everything about Apple¹s supply chain is
suddenly hunky-dory, but the heroic narrative of a fearless theater artist
taking on the biggest company in the world is now a pile of smoking rubble.

Mr. Daisey¹s one-man show, ³The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,²
closed its very successful run at the Public Theater in New York on
Sunday. The show played a significant role in raising public
consciousness, not just about the ethics of offshore manufacturing, but
about whether those of us who fondle those shiny new iPads every day are
implicated as well.

It was a fine bit of theater. It worked less well as a piece of
journalism, which is how it was represented when it was broadcast on ³This
American Life.² The episode was a huge hit, downloaded as a podcast more
than any other in the history of the program. But it fell apart after Rob
Schmitz, a reporter from ³Marketplace,² another public radio show,
fact-checked the specifics.

When Ira Glass, the host of ³This American Life,² and his colleagues found
out that Mr. Daisey had not done the work he said he had, they put
together an hour of very compelling radio retracting the piece in full,
and in very specific detail.

Mr. Daisey, to his credit, appeared on the show for an awkward and
occasionally excruciating interview, but was mostly evasive, arguing that
some characters and events had been invented in service of a greater
narrative truth. He said it was only when histheatrical piece
<http://mikedaisey.blogspot.com/> was pushed through the crucible of
journalism that it became false.

Mr. Glass said plainly at the beginning of the show that after Mr. Daisey
failed to provide contact numbers for his translator, ³we should have
killed the story.² And he went to some lengths to explain that ³This
American Life² was not just about the story, but about the facts as well.
Usually a calm and perpetually amused presence at the microphone, Mr.
Glass¹s voice conveyed quiet rage and regret. His voice seemed especially
pinched at the end, when he said the show was financed in part by
³Reputation.com <http://reputation.com/>.²

³I and my co-workers on ŒThis American Life¹ are not happy to have done
anything to hurt the reputation of the journalism that happens on this
radio station every day,² he said.

I don¹t think they did. The story came up bad, they found out about it
from someone else, and they amended it with an hourlong retraction
<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction>
that was straightforward and very powerful.
During an interview punctuated by brutal, long stretches of silence, Mr.
Glass asked Mr. Daisey why he had not just come clean when the
fact-checking process began.

³I think I was terrified,² Mr. Daisey said after a very long pause.

Mr. Glass: ³Of what?²

Another halting pause by Mr. Daisey, followed by: ³I think I was terrified
that if I untied these things, that the work, that I know is really good,
and tells a story, that does these really great things for making people
care, that it would come apart in a way where, where it would ruin
everything.²

It did. I am a longtime fan of ³This American Life,² but I have never
assumed that every story I heard was literally true. The writer and
monologist David Sedaris frequently tells wonderful personal yarns on the
show that may not be precisely true in every detail, but this was not a
story about a family car trip gone bad.

Mr. Daisey admits to cutting corners, but ³stands by his work,² in part
because it moved people to care about other people¹s suffering in a
far-flung land. Unfortunately, the parts of his show with which his
audience connected so viscerally were the ones that seem to have been
based on nothing more than a need for drama.

That former worker who maimed a hand while manufacturing the iPad, then
hovered over that magical device when Mr. Daisey handed him one?
Remarkable. And fictional. The 13-year-old who worked the assembly line?
The translator does not recall meeting such a person.
Writing about the implosion on The Atlantic¹s Web site, Max Fisher said
<http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/worse-than-kony20
12-the-tragedy-of-mike-daiseys-lies-about-china/254640/>: ³By lying,
Daisey undermined the cause he purported to advance. That¹s the real
scandal.²

I take his point, but I¹m more concerned about the suggestion that you
have to cheat to come up with remarkable journalism that tilts the rink.
As it happens, Charles Duhigg, David Barboza and Keith Bradsher, reporters
who work at The New York Times, spent a great deal of time last year
investigating Apple¹s suppliers and published a series in January
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/ieconomy.html> that may have
contained a bit less drama, but landed hard. Apple subsequently announced
an audit of its Chinese supply chain by an independent group.

It also stayed written: No corrections or retractions, just solid
reporting that Mr. Duhigg described in a phone call as ³independently
sourced and independently confirmed.²

Even as Mr. Daisey found himself in the stockade, another nonjournalist
turned big player in current events ended up in the news himself.

Jason Russell, the producer of a video titled ³Kony 2012² that went viral
on Twitter, YouTube and elsewhere ‹ about Joseph Kony, leader of the
Lord¹s Resistance Army in Uganda ‹ had come under criticism for cutting
some corners as well.

Word came on Friday that Mr. Russell had been detained by the police after
he was found running around naked and yelling incoherently in a San Diego
neighborhood. His wife, Danica Russell, said in a statement, ³Because of
how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very
personal, and Jason took them very hard.²

The easy lesson might be that journalism is not a game of bean bag, and it
would be best left to professionals. But we are in a pro-am informational
world where news comes from all directions. Traditional media still
originate big stories, but many others come from all corners ‹ books,
cellphone videos, blogs and, yes, radio shows built on storytelling.

But there is another word for news and information that comes from
advocates with a vested interest: propaganda.

It is worth mentioning that professional credentials are not insurance
against journalistic scandal. ³Marketplace,² the highly regarded business
show from American Public Media that uncovered Mr. Daisey¹s untruths,
recently had to retract a first-person account from Leo Webb, who
portrayed himself as an out-of-work former Army sniper who was also a
minor league baseball player. Turned out he was neither a veteran nor a
ballplayer.

There is nothing in the journalism playbook to prevent a determined liar
from getting one over now and again. It is partly because seekers of truth
expect the same from others. On the broadcast this weekend, Mr. Glass
seemed stunned by Mr. Daisey¹s ability to look him in the eye and
dissemble.

³I have such a weird mix of feelings about this because I simultaneously
feel terrible for you, and also I feel lied to,² Mr. Glass said. ³And
also, I stuck my neck out for you.²

I sent an e-mail to someone I know who is an expert on journalistic
malfeasance to ask if, in a complicated informational age, there was a way
to make sure that someone telling an important story had the actual goods.

³All the good editing, fact-checking and plagiarism-detection software in
the world is not going to change the fact that anyone is, under the right
circumstances, capable of anything and that journalism is essentially
built on trust.²

I think Jayson Blair, who responded to my e-mail query, may be on to
something.